by Hannah Paige
“That’s alright. I know he’s still around, my mom and I keep him close, you know?”
Ian had a feeling he wasn’t quite grasping what the boy meant, but he nodded anyway, “Yeah, I do.”
“It’s important, whether you can physically see them, feel them, or not, to keep family close. A friend of mine taught me that.”
Ian nodded, charting the boy’s words to his intentions, “You’re trying to get me to call my father, aren’t you? You’re tricky.” He shook his finger at the boy, who didn’t show a speck of humor in Ian’s teasing.
“No, you should only call your dad if you want to. I do think it’s kind of odd, though. After that second a few years ago, you’ve lived by the motto ‘carpe diem’. You live life with your head up, your eyes open. It’s admirable, true, but curious that you only choose to see half of the world around you. You see important things, catch lessons that most people miss, who maybe haven’t learned yet the importance of stopping to look. But it’s odd, looking with one eye closed so you don’t see a part of your life.”
Ian never thought of it like that; he didn’t believe his father had played a large enough role in his life to be given an entire half, “That’s an interesting way to put it, kid. You some kind of child-prophet, or something?”
He smiled and Ian felt a tingle scurry down his spine, “Not hardly.” He stood up and brushed his hands off on his pants. “Enjoy the sunny day. I hope you get to see your family soon.”
Ian smiled, then noticed the boy’s tattered shoes again, “Hey, kid?”
He turned around and Ian felt dizzy, the boy’s face was so bright, “Yes?”
“Why did you do it? Your shoes were new and we both know you didn’t ‘accidentally’ buy the wrong size jacket. It’s June. You shouldn’t be shopping for jackets at all.”
His grin softened, “Because every second counts. If I can use up a couple of my own to make somebody’s entire life just a little better, then why not try? There’s 6.8 billion people on this Earth. That sounds like a daunting number, but it’s really not, once you stop to think about how small our world is. Those 6.8 billion people are made up of brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons: of people you pass on the street every day, or just happen to meet in the park one morning. We all affect one another, whether we realize it or not. That boy probably won’t remember me. In a few years he’ll have forgotten what I look like. I didn’t even tell him my name. But that doesn’t matter, because he will remember what he did in those clean shoes, where he wore the new jacket or the people that made the time to say hello to him, to give him a chance, because his appearance improved one day in June. All of that, just from some new clothes and a few seconds. Every second counts. Enjoy the sunny day, sir. I hope your father has a happy birthday.”
Chapter Three
The sandwich shop down the street from the park was packed. But Ian didn’t know anywhere in New York that wasn’t, especially a lunch place at noon that happened to serve the best roast beef sandwich Ian had ever tasted. The red and white checkered tables were crammed together so tightly that he was probably only a foot away from the jittery young man at the table next to him. His legs were vibrating under the table and he tapped his left hand against his silverware set, making a tinny ‘clink’ sound every second.
Ian pivoted in his chair to face him, “Are you alright?”
The wiry man snapped to attention, turning his eyes on Ian, “Me? I’m great! Thanks for asking, how are you today, sir?”
Ian didn’t get many ‘sirs’; it made him feel old, “I’m doing okay.”
Clink, clink, clink.
“Is it always this crowded here? I’m from New Jersey, so I’m not really sure.”
Ian chuckled. Tourists always underestimated the sheer amount of people packed into this city, “Yeah it is. What brings you here?”
“Well, I’m representing someone who’s been offered a role in an upcoming documentary. The head of the project, Naomi, is having it all filmed here. See, the documentary is on people and how they’ve been affected by the September 11 attacks.”
Ian felt the gazes of a couple of the nearest diners on him; it was a bit of a touchy subject, even ten years later. “That sounds…tough.”
A high-pitched laugh escaped the man’s lips, “Right, yeah, it probably will be. I’m not sure, I don’t know much about the film industry. But this Naomi woman, she seems to know what she’s doing. Anyway, she asked me to come up here to look over the script so that I can pass it on to Rick. He’s the guy that she wants in the movie, along with a bunch of other people. I don’t know how many she’s gathered, she doesn’t tell me everything, but I’ve heard that she wants at least four, if not five people. We’ll see how many she gets.”
Ian had to agree with him. It was hard enough tracking people down, finding the ones that had been that closely afflicted by terror, they didn’t usually like to be bothered. Getting them all to agree to talk about their problems…on camera was another feat entirely.
“Yeah. I’d wish her luck in that endeavor; it’s not going to be easy.”
“I’m also helping her out with locating people, or at least trying. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone that has been touched by an act of terrorism, would you?” he stared at Ian with a look of pure optimism, as if he considered the question perfectly appropriate to ask a complete stranger in a sandwich shop that was currently violating fire code regulations.
“What did you say your name was?” Ian asked.
A waiter appeared and left a sandwich and what looked to be an iced tea in front of the plaid-shirted man.
“Oh, it’s Steven. I didn’t catch yours.”
Ian extended a hand, “Ian Chase.”
“Wow, great name. You could be a movie star.”
Ian laughed loosely at that, “I wouldn’t go that far, never even been in front of a camera.”
“Ah, that’s okay then. You lived here long?”
Ian was thankful that his own sandwich was delivered to him, giving him a moment to breathe before answering seven-cups-of-coffee-Steven. “My whole life.”
“Wow! That’s amazing!”
Ian didn’t really consider learning to take cabs from age seven and never having owned a yard especially noteworthy, but he shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich.
Steven went on, “So you were here? During the attack?”
Ian almost spit out his hunk of roast beef, “Excuse me?”
“On September 11th, you were here, then?”
Ian mentally debated whether this roast beef sandwich was really worth the conversation that Steven was insisting on having. It was fresh, hot from the oven, and on a ciabatta roll. Fresh baked every morning, it advertised on the chalkboard outside. The Swiss cheese oozed over the edges, stacked at least four slices thick. And he was hungry. He took a deep breath; Carpe diem, be positive, remember the time you took a chance and talked to the hyper girl in the cab. That didn’t turn out so bad.
“Yeah, yeah I was here. There, actually.”
Steven dropped his sandwich, his orange eyebrows skyrocketing as he dove down to the briefcase at his feet. “You were there? I mean, there! At the towers? But you look so…good. I mean, healthy. That’s what I mean,” he stammered, then bent down once again, resuming his rummaging through his briefcase.
“I wasn’t in the towers, if that’s what you’re thinking. But, still, not everyone who was here looks like the people you see in magazines, in articles about illnesses or injuries caused from the attacks. Some people don’t make the papers,” Ian said, thinking of how Mr. Adkins was left daughterless, or Lee was left a widower. Neither of them had an article in Newsweek. He was sure they weren’t the only ones either.
“But everyone has a story, whether it was written down or not. You have a story, don’t you, Ian?” he came up from his briefcase with a business card in his thin, bony fingers.
Ian frowned and started to stand up, deciding that he could always buy ano
ther sandwich later, “Okay, Steven, I’m not interested in joining any outreach program. I don’t need help, I’m fine. You know what, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m a far better person than who I was before the attacks, so you can just put that card away. I don’t need it.”
Steven stood up too, shooting his chair back so fast it skidded into the man at the table behind him, triggering an annoyed grunt that Steven ignored, “But that’s exactly why you need it. I mean, not a therapy group, or even an outreach program. Naomi’s project, though. You would be perfect for. Here, her number’s right below mine. Just give her a call, I’m sure she’d love to talk to you about your experience, how you were changed.”
Ian ran a hand through his curly hair.
What would Jill have done?
“This project, it’s a documentary, so we share our stories, tell how we’ve changed because of the—” He didn’t really want to attract any more attention by waving around words like ‘attack’ or ‘crash’. These were bomb-words, especially with the anniversary coming up so soon. “Because of that day? Is that it?” Ian asked.
Steven faltered, surprised at Ian’s compliance, “Yes, yes, as far as I know. If you get in touch with her, she can give you more details.”
“Will it help people? Connect them? I mean the ones who really need help?”
Steven nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a broken Jack-in-the-box, “That’s the idea. Naomi is hoping to have it done by the time the memorial opens in September, that way the topic will be fresh in people’s minds. People might be more apt to understanding the communal message of the documentary.”
Ian’s chest heaved and he snatched the business card, “Alright, I’ll think about it. When does she need a decision?” Steven couldn’t contain the joy he’d felt just from Ian taking the dumb card, “As soon as possible. Thank you Ian, Mr. Chase. Thank you very much, I’m sure Naomi will appreciate it. You’ll be doing a tremendous service, selfless, really. I hope you go through with it.”
Ian nodded, sidestepping around another table to get to the exit, “Okay thanks, Steven. It was…thanks.”
When he left the restaurant, his sandwich—with only one bite taken out of it—still on the table, along with a couple of dollars, Steven was on his feet, beaming like a hippie on Earth Day.
On his way home, Ian passed the homeless boy selling newspapers from his paint bucket again. He was wearing the leather jacket, despite the heat of the summer day. He stood a little taller in his new outfit, proud of his appearance, Ian guessed, for the first time in his life. Ian dropped a five-dollar bill in the newspaper bucket and was rewarded with a smile, a little less hopeless than every other time prior.
The bell overhead the coffee house door jingled as Ian pushed his way inside. The heat was stifling in there with the pots on and four employees brushing past one another behind the counter, trying to fulfill all of the orders. Ian scanned all four of them and glanced at the clock overhead; it was only one.
He leaned around the side of the counter, careful not to get in the way of any of the paying customers rapping their caffeine-deprived fingers on their crossed arms. He waited for one of the employees to come to his side.
“Hey, where’s Chuck? Doesn’t he usually have the morning shift?”
The young girl clamped a lid on an iced coffee drink with whipped cream piled high like meringue, “He quit. Yesterday was his last day. Wants to get a real job now that he’s finished up his classes at NYU, I guess. I have a vanilla Frappuccino with two shots of espresso for Hillary!” She hollered over her shoulder.
“Who’s replacing him?”
The girl huffed, clearly irritated with Ian’s questioning; she had more important things to do than take time to talk to someone, “I don’t know, dude. My manager’s looking for someone but hasn’t found anyone to take the job yet.”
Ian didn’t know if he liked being a ‘sir’ or a ‘dude’ better, but patted the counter, “Thanks,” and jogged upstairs with Baloo in-tow.
He unclipped his leash and tossed his wallet and Steven’s business card on the kitchen table. The home phone seemed to be staring at him with an unbreakable poker face. It loomed on the kitchen counter and Ian pressed up on the tile, sitting down on the surface. He looked down at Baloo, who had taken a seat at Ian’s feet.
“I don’t have to call, you know. I don’t. It’s not like I owe the man anything. I’ve never called him before now, and I’ve been doing pretty well these past ten years.”
Looking with one eye closed.
He heard the boy’s philosophical words in his head and hopped down from the counter, unable to sit still. He was a doctor, a really good one, too. It was in his nature to help people, so why was it so damned hard to see that this would be helping himself?
She was the only good thing left of this family.
Ian pounded his fists on the counter, rattling the phone on its stand and sending Baloo scurrying out of the room. Maybe it was because he had learned to like smiling all the time, greeting people with a positive attitude that said, ‘it’s a great day to be alive’. He liked laughing easily and spending time with friends. Ian, deep down, knew the real reason that he hadn’t picked up that phone and spoken to his dad in ten years was because he was afraid. He didn’t want to return to the man he had been before he’d met Jill. As soon as he’d clocked his father out of his life once and for all, it had been easy to pull his head out of the sand and see the possibilities the world had to offer. He indulged in the good things in life all the time, and he liked it. If he made that call, opened that door again, welcoming the dictator of disappointment back into his head…he didn’t want to fall back into the hole that Jill had pulled him out of.
“What do I do?” he said to the empty room; his voice came out raw and vulnerable and he hated himself for that.
“What do I do, Jill?” he asked once more to the empty apartment.
His ears pricked up, startled and confused, when they heard the stereo from his bedroom click on. Baloo ran barking into Ian’s room, but stopped in the doorway, his eyes caught on something. Ian followed him in but was met with an empty room. He frowned, staring at the speakers humming the tune, I didn’t know just what to do. And so I whispered I love you. And she said that she loved me too.
The CD had skipped almost to the end of the song. Ian looked around the room and back at Baloo, who had his eyes glued to the space beside Ian, in front of the stereo.
It was Jill’s song. The one that she’d played for him that day in the cab. He had a feeling he was starting to understand what the little boy had meant earlier. Ian was understanding all of it.
Ian made the first phone call.
“Hello?” a woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello, my name is Ian Chase, Steven—” Ian thought for a second but the energetic young man hadn’t given him a last name, “Steven found me earlier today and told me to contact you about possibly participating in a documentary that you are putting together. He said you might be interested in my story.”
A pause and Ian heard her muttering to someone on the other end of the line, then, “Yes, absolutely! He told you about the project?”
“Briefly, I just want to make sure that this is going to help people. I’m only going to do it if it’s going to help people, affect others that maybe don’t have a chance to share their stories.”
We all affect one another, whether we realize it or not.
“That’s the goal, Mr. Chase. We want to draw all those that have been affected by that day together. While, of course, we can’t interview everyone, we are hoping that different groups of people can be represented and can be empathized by the mass population.”
“Good. I’ll do it, then. I just want to make sure that it will help, me doing this. I don’t want to just be a face on the camera or some cheap magazine’s weekly idol. I want to help real people, whether they realize it or not.”
Then Ian made the second call.
C
hapter Four
“Tyler-Chase Psychiatric Center, how may I help you?”
Ian shook his head in disbelief. Ten years and his father had gotten his name slapped on the hospital, “Hi, I’m calling about Dr. Chase. Is he in today?”
“Yes, sir, he is. Just for a few more hours, though. He’s planning on leaving at four. Did you have an appointment to see him?”
“No, ma’am. That’s all I needed to know, thank you,” and he hung up.
When he got to the hospital, it was close to three. He climbed out of the cab and stood out front for a second too long. It was physically impossible to stand outside a psych. center looking even a little bit disoriented without getting noticed.
“First time here?” a woman asked, coming up beside Ian.
He shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets, “Not ever, just the first time in a long time.”
She nodded and tucked her chin-length brown hair behind her ears, “That’s harder, I think.”
Ian’s feet wouldn’t move and he was thankful that the woman stayed where she was. The company made him feel less like a future-tenant.
“Are you visiting someone?” he asked, looking at her instead of the building in front of him that seemed to grow in size the longer he stood there.
A slightly sad but mostly thankful smile spread across the woman’s face, “No, no I’m not. I’m actually here for a final consultation. I used to live here.”
Ian was surprised by the honest words. He didn’t know many people brave enough, or strong enough, to confess that they’d spent some time in a psych. ward.
She took a deep breath, puffing slightly with confidence as she craned her neck, taking in the building with eyes that seemed twice as old as the woman looked, “Yep. But not anymore. Not ever again.” Her smile faltered for a split second, then she looked back at Ian with rejuvenated fervor, “Shall we go in?”
Ian nodded and let her lead the way inside. The last time he had been inside the building that occupied his father’s utmost attention he’d been eighteen. It was right before his high school graduation and his father wanted him to see the facility through a prospective psychiatrist’s eyes, or a psychologist’s. His father wasn’t picky. Ian hadn’t told him yet that he did in fact want to study medicine in college, but not in the psychiatric branch.